St. Louis Metro Area Chapter - SLA

Digital 'Gallery'

In her March 23, 2007 post on Digitization 101, Jill Hurst-Wahl writes about 'How I want to view digitized materials'.  As a good example she cites an exhibit from Second Life that's set up to look like a regular physical gallery, with images representing digitized items distributed around the virtual room just as they might be in a 'real' gallery.  It's a wish-list item worth thinking about for anyone trying to make digitized collections comprehensible to users, especially visual thinkers.

She also describes why Second Life (SL) is important:

SL in some ways is a huge sandbox.  It allows people to think out-of-the-box about spaces, products and services.  SL will undoubtedly impact tools that we will use in the future.

If you click on the gallery photo in her blog post you'll be taken to a set of eight of her images from Second Life.

SB

Interview with Rebecca Vargha, SLA President

Karen Robinson, clinical instructor, interviews SLA President Rebecca Vargha for LIS Radio.  The interview took place on February 27.  In the interview, Rebecca discusses SLA and the future for librarians.  Go to LISRadio to listen to this archived webcast.

-Erin Lanham

Wishing for a Librarian

A recent post on SLA's Solo Division listserv should brighten the day of any librarian.  It was an excerpt from an Inc Magazine article (Dec 2006, The Office: The Thought That Counts), a 10-item office wish list.  In among wishes like 'a window for every employee' and 'IT support that understands the business' and 'at least one employee under 25 and one employee over 60' is this one:

A librarian.  Yes, I know, much of what you need is available online and your staff Googles with the best of them.  Still, corporate librarians operate with a level of nuance and finesse that technology can't match.  They can uncover sources so obscure as to be practically nonexistent.  And they know what's what -- they not only tell people what is known but also warn them what isn't.

-SB

On Google Book Search

In a recent post (Mass digitization, Dec 17, 2006) Lorcan Dempsey provides thoughtful commentary on large-scale commercial digitization projects such as Google Book Search.

Among the drawbacks:

• Small proportion of culture represented
• Poor quality of digital capture
• Limits of search / presentation
• Restrictions by a private company (in this case Google) on public information
• Cultural bias exacerbated by Google's advertising business model

In contrast, French librarians have developed these principles for digitization:

• Free access to publicly owned resources
• Non-exclusive agreements with content providers
• Capture of preservation standard images with assurances of long-term accessibility
• Protection of the integrity of original source materials
• Provision of multi-lingual, multi-cultural access

- S.B.

Holiday Party was Happenin'

Thank you to everyone involved in the Holiday Happening program on Monday (12/4/06)  (Programming committee, Ann Lauenstein and A-B Catering).  As usual, the food was delicious and I had a nice time visiting with colleagues.

Thank you to the sponsors too!

-Erin Lanham